Tonight I drove out to Northampton, Ma and met Kim the owner of The Boxcar Gallery – (yes this gallery is really in an old boxcar) at the Haymarket Cafe! I had their hot chocolate and their Fried Egg and Mozzarella sandwich. The sandwich was a little too much food than I expected but I enjoyed it overall. Kim asked me about my photographic process and I asked her about the arts in western Massachusetts. She had also asked me for a tarot reading and I gave her one at the end. Never been to Northampton (or “Noho”) before and it reminded me of Bethlehem – but holy shit did I feel at home in Northampton! It’s definitely a city I’d like to explore more. The funny thing with meeting Kim is that she had seen my artwork in Pomfret before I submitted my work to her as she grew up in Pomfret. It was a cool moment for me because I was all, “WOAH! MY ART IS GETTING RECOGNIZED!” I seriously hope this job in Enfield continues because I’m falling in love with this area.
All posts by Kristi
The Healing Center in Beverly
Today I visited Joanna at the Healing Center in Beverly and we talked about a future partnership with my Kirlian Process and my studio space at Cabot Street Studios. We talked about potentially getting my research into workshop format and using the Healing Center space as well as Studio 19’s space for workshops and presentations.
We also talked about literally working with the life force energy as well, since Joanna is a Reiki Master and knows how to work with the energy we thought about trying to capture and visually express the differences of a charged object with Reiki energy and a regular object. I also talked about some of the things I had been struggling with and we decided that Reiki should be the next stage in my healing process as well.
One step forward, five steps behind.
One can’t just move on. When someone says to me, “Just move on”. It’s not that easy and those words just make me angry. It’s hard to forget a moment in your life when you were floating on a cloud in heaven, with someone who is filling a piece of your heart that you’ve been yearning for all your life.
It’s hard to forget a moment in your life when that same person pushed you off that cloud and you landed on the ground and it broke every inch of your body (and heart) into a million pieces. But, yet somehow you are still living.
- Somehow you wake up everyday and face the pain.
- Somehow you still seem to live on, in a whole new world without them.
- Somehow you go about your day and not break down with every thought about them that enters your head.
- Somehow you have created a new life, a life that excludes them, when just 5 months ago they were your everything.
- Somehow you are forced to think that they do not believe in true love and happiness and that they don’t see the same in you as you see in them.
- Somehow you have to live on without contact from them, which makes it even more painful as they convinced you that they’re living a normal life, one without pain.
- Somehow you just live, knowing you had the feeling of living in ecstasy and then it all came crashing down on you tearing apart your heart and soul.
18 months later, it may be all a memory but the ghost of the pain still exists and haunts you every day. A pang in the heart, a pang of yearning, desire, longing to return to that cloud in heaven – yet you have to look up at that cloud from the ground and pick up the pieces slowly and continue to heal.
Artiste Marketplace and a New Calling
This weekend I participated in the Artiste Marketplace sponsored by Artiste Art and Craft Studio. I didn’t sell anything but I gave away a lot of marketing material which is always a good thing. As usual, people were generally interested in my artwork and spent time asking questions and looking through the portfolio. I’m glad I had that experience. I even met someone who wants to do a trade – teaching her photo processing and her teaching me Reiki. In the past week that was the second time my artwork has attracted Reiki practitioners. I met the Owner of ‘The Healing Center’ in Beverly at my reception last Tuesday who is also a Reiki practitioner. It makes sense that I’m attracting these type of people because Reiki is all about using the life force energy to heal people. The owner of ‘The Healing Center’ wants to do a collaboration with me and my process which I mentioned in my post about the Studio19 reception. I went on their website and I found a class about plants – too perfect for my usage! I’ve been wanting to use the medicinal properties of plants in my artwork some how. And I love that it’s only one Thursday a month. I signed up for the December class since next week is a little to soon for me. I’ll have to leave work early, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I’m excited to see where my artwork is taking my professionally and spiritually. 🙂
Studio19 – Opening Reception Recap
On Tuesday evening I drove over 70 miles to attend my reception on the Northshore coming from Enfield, Ct. During work that day I learned that both my photographer and production crew (Estrada Productions) that I had booked for the reception fell through! My parents ended up taking pictures. But the fact that I have never put on an event like this before I thought the reception went very well. Several new people showed up and showed interest in buying my artwork! Some of the artists from Cabot Street showed up as well which I was very thankful for. It started slow, but ended well. There was definitely more people than I expected, which is always nice. I was even publicized in the Wicked Local: Wellesley. And Beverly Main Streets did a social media blast and my landlord posted the reception on the Cabot Street website. I put posters up around town which seemed to be the most effective. I even got interest from a Healing Center located down the street to do a partnership with my process and capturing people’s energy with it because they do Reiki. I’m pretty excited about that. I have to do some more research on that, but that won’t happen until I finish my proposal for my artist residency. I think in the end I’d definitely do it all over again, but I may focus on promotion next time. But it was difficult to work on getting the studio setup and do self promotion and starting a new job all at once. Now I just have to make a whole new body of work and have another one!
Minuteman Press Recap
So it’s been my first 7 days at my new job as graphic designer at Minuteman Press New England. It’s been fantastic! The work is cool, my boss is great and my co-workers aren’t too bad either ;-). I kinda enjoy the fact that some of the work I do isn’t always considered design. For example, sometimes its’ editing copy on excel or recreation of previous artwork for a new customer. I’ve also been able to use my psychic abilities too which always makes for a good time. I had made a comment the other day about my monitor not being as big as what I’m used to and my boss asked what size I was used to and I said about the mac that was sitting on the desk to the left. He was like, ‘you know you aren’t getting a mac’. I was like aw shucks, lol. But he bought me a new monitor the same size during lunch and its’ supposed to be of similar size – so we’ll see. I had a really rewarding experience so far where I had a design project to create a new design for a business card for a local frame shop. They wanted ornate scrolling full bleed and a golden frame in the center around the logo. I just went with what I was seeing in my head and she ended up really liking it as it matched her ‘vision’. She just didn’t like the typeface I used, which was OK with me because I had mixed feelings with the typeface anyway. Another design project I did lately was a letterhead for a local Grammar School which I included in this post. It’s still a bit surreal to me that I’m finally working in my field – a position I’ve coveted for so long.
As things fall apart, other things fall together
Wednesday I left the tearoom to begin a new career journey as a graphic designer out in Enfield, CT. However, the day did not turn out as expected and it just spiraled out of control and became a tearful emotional mess. First, I was trying to speak to a co-worker of mine about the studio situation and the events unfolded and she ended up just getting up mid-conversation just leaving me there confused. Apparently she didn’t like how I was talking about it. But I was emotional that day because the drama that ensued over the weekend and starting my new job all the emotions caught up to me and for whatever reason it left me really emotionally upset the way that incident was carried out. So I thought I was OK but I was still having trouble holding it all together after that incident, but the psychic I sat next to by the window suddenly started something with me about how she was apparently receiving ‘negative thoughts’ from me and she was fed up with trying to just be my friend. She continued to yell and swear at me saying that I didn’t know ‘what it was like to be her’. I told her to get the fuck off my back because I was really fucking overwhelmed with transitioning and starting a new JOB. Thankfully, my boss took notice and yelled at her and took my side of things. I just couldn’t believe it because I did NOTHING to agitate her. If I did accidentally send any sort of negative mental energy, GEE I’M SORRY IT’S NOT LIKE THE LIFE I WORKED HARD FOR FOR THE PAST YEAR ISN’T FALLING APART OR ANYTHING FOR AN OPPORTUNITY IN MY FIELD THAT I WENT TO SCHOOL FOR THAT MAY ONLY LAST FOR TWO MONTHS. GEE, I’M SORRY THAT I WAS SO WRAPPED UP IN MY OWN STRUGGLES THAT I DIDN’T CONSIDER WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO BE YOU. GEE, I’M SORRY NOT SORRY. Generally speaking, I just don’t like this individual. I, generally don’t like to associate myself with individuals that don’t GET IT or just don’t have their act together. I act friendly to them, because I have to WORK WITH THEM. I’m not acting friendly towards you because I want to be your friend. We don’t hang out after work and have hardly anything in common. And I really don’t appreciate the ‘woe, is me’ attitude. I have my own struggles to deal with and I don’t need your shit. I will try to understand as much as I can, but I just don’t have the energy to get involved in everyone’s mess. BUT of course, do you know what time it is? It’s mercury fucking retrograde time. And its in the sign of scorpio, my rising sign. Which means everything that I do socially speaking becomes reversed – and boy did I feel it that day. The co-worker I mentioned in the beginning and I usually go out after work to decompress and stop at mckyd’s and just talk. Well, to my surprise she didn’t want to do that and that sent me through another emotional roller coaster. Then I had to go have a talk with one of the managers that was working that day that I was close to because I seriously had no fucking clue what the fuck happened that day and was just devastated by the way day turned out. I guess I was hoping for a fun, relaxed day that was somewhat drama-free because of the drama over the weekend with the studios. I’m trying to move on from it but my mind is still pretty in shock about the events that unfolded that day. Thank GOD I have a new job to take my mind off of there for awhile.
Something Wicked This Way Comes
So gave some news regarding my studio space. The events of today have really put things in the past year into a different perspective for me. My art and my spirituality go hand in hand and the fact that these events came up are really no surprise to me – they are just frustrating, annoying, and beyond disappointing to deal with. However! In terms of my personal life this is how things are playing out – my heart got broken last August and I believe it jumped started a karma cycle as well as a transformation. At the beginning 2012 I feel in love. This person has touched my heart in such a way that it has transformed me in ways I could never have imagined – even heartbroken this person has transformed me. To this DAY I yearn, desire and love them despite them breaking my heart – however, they are not in my life and I cannot be with them at this time. Deep in my heart, I KNOW they feel the same, and I KNOW they will eventually come around – just not now. But I can’t go without a day thinking that I am stuck loving someone I can’t have.
In my readings, I teach that energy is elastic. Meaning if you chase something you desire or yearn – it will just keep pushing it further away from you. Which means, you have to take your mind off of something else in order for it to come bouncing back to you sooner than you expected – ESPECIALLY so when you are in a karmic cycle – the energy is a little bit more sensitive during this time. Knowing this, I channeled my anger, hurt and frustration dealing with my relationship situation into my career. I took out my frustration by applying to exhibitions to get my artwork seen and to get exposure. I took out my anger by signing onto a studio renovation project so I could channel that into something creative. I took out my hurt by working as a professional tarot reader because in order to help yourself sometimes you need to help others who are in worse conditions than you are.
I like to say that the beginning of my career began March 2013 when I had my first exhibition at Harvard Universities’ Leadership Conference in which I attended. Upon, coming back from the conference I found a playing card – the queen of hearts. This had significant meaning to me because the equivalent of this card in the tarot is the queen of cups, the character card of the person who broke my heart. Which is ironic, because the queen of cups is associated to the Goddess of Love. From that day onward, I have been sunbathing in the presence of the Goddess of Love because March is also when my karmic cycle turned again, becoming ever so slowly more positive. April, I planned a healing retreat for September in California. The next six months of my life were crazy and wonderful and stable. I got another exhibition, then another, and then I was notified of winning $2,000 for my artwork from a competition I had entered in June – here I also signed onto the studio renovation project as well. July, I had exhibited up in Montreal, then in Connecticut. Also things kept delaying during this time with the studio – we were rushing to get things done for our reception at the beginning of September. Then I went away for two weeks – Washington DC reception and then my spiritual retreat in California. The tearoom had to be closed down for a couple of weeks so I had no job when I came back from California. The tearoom reopened, then I got an interview out in Enfield, Ct for a full-time graphic design position doing print design – then I got the job, but on a 60 day contract position first. The government shutdown delaying the Smithsonian Institute exhibition. Then I was selected for a possible art residency abroad for 2014. Then the studio management collapsed and everyone’s moving out. Then I’m starting my job on Halloween, and on top of that find a living situation out there for during the week.
The wheel just turned last month in September around the Autumn Equinox. So things are already starting to get crazy and become even crazier, but in a good kinda crazy and NOT at all like what I dealt with last fall. Constant resume rejections, dealing with heartbreak, the death of my grandmother that I was close to, and my 16 year old cat. These next 6 months are going to be a POLAR opposite of that. I wouldn’t be surprised if things almost reversed themselves (except the deaths). I would be hired as a full-time graphic designer (my dream job), my lover will come back to me (ironically this job is located closer to them), my artwork will continue to move forward, and I’ll finally move out of my parents place. I can almost feel it, and totally see it in the spreads I do surrounding it. SOmething surely wicked this way comes…
Announcement regarding Studio19
I have an announcement regarding my studio, Studio19. This morning I received an email about a sudden shift in studio management. I can’t go into details, but its’ causing a lot of people to move out of the community that I’m apart of. I will be staying for the year and then spend that time to create a new body of work and to figure out what to do next. Since I am transitioning with my contract position on top of a lot things that are up in the air right now, moving out of Cabot Street Studios is not an option unless I’m forced to and if management tries to pull shit on me then I’ll take legal action but I won’t go that route unless I have to. I am going to let the dust settle and see where things go. But for the most part I’ll be staying and my reception will still be on.
Why am I staying? I am staying to make art. And to express what I love to do. I didn’t join Cabot Street Studios because of a certain individual or to socialize. I joined because my artwork needs space for me to make more and that is why I am staying. To continue with my goal to make more artwork. Sure I’m disappointed that a bunch of people are deciding to pack up and leave – but that’s their decision and this is mine.
Mediumistic Youtube Channel
So, since the summer and ever since I’ve been following beauty bloggers, I’ve been transfixed on the idea of having your own show on youtube. I just haven’t gotten the courage to post a damn video! I don’t know what’s holding myself back, but I just can’t get over certain things that appear on camera that I subconsciously do. I just gotta force myself to get over it and maybe someone doesn’t see it the same way I do. I’m also worried about my lisp and how it’ll come across on my show. I guess like in Fashion, they say if you have it, flaunt it! I’ve been filming some test videos to see how things will come together. I concluded that I need to get my studio setup first before I can film comfortably.
Infinite Earth Exhibition Installed and Tour Dates
Photos by Sonja, Cendak
I am excited to announce that the infinite earth exhibition is finally installed at the Smithsonian Institute Ripely center and will be on tour during the following months at the following places:
March – April 2014
Art Gallery of the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center
Bowling Green, KY
May – June 2014
Access Gallery
Denver, CO
July – August 2014
The Reynolds Homestead and Gallery at Virginia Tech University
Blacksburg, VA
Studio Updates
My dad and I went to go work on my studio this past Tuesday. Things are finally coming together in the main room and now we’re shifting our focus on the darkroom. It’s been put on hold because we were painting the main room. I was going to do venetian plaster on the big wall, but since I just recently accepted a contract position at Minuteman Press, its going to be hard for me to find time to work on the walls and I like how it is coming together without the plaster. I just have some more things I’d like to put there, like picture lights to put above the frames and a few decor items like curtains, tapestries and a rug to put down. Otherwise it is almost done.